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Across readings of late sixteenth to mid-seventeenth century works, Kyle Pivetti argues that the writers of early modern England found in literary forms—including dumb shows, allegory, and rhyme—the means to construct national memory. By combining a historical analysis with formal readings of Shakespeare, Spenser, and Milton as well as non-canonical texts like Gorboduc, it shows the mnemonic devices that help readers to recall lines of verse are the same devices that make the early modern national narrative.

Of Memory and Literary Form